Top 488 Quotes & Sayings by John Dryden - Page 2
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English poet John Dryden.
Last updated on November 25, 2024.
Either be wholly slaves or wholly free.
For truth has such a face and such a mien, as to be loved needs only to be seen.
Love reckons hours for months, and days for years; and every little absence is an age.
None, none descends into himself, to find
The secret imperfections of his mind:
But every one is eagle-ey'd to see
Another's faults, and his deformity.
Faith is to believe what you do not yet see: the reward for this faith is to see what you believe. Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.
None but the brave deserve the fair.
The secret pleasure of a generous act Is the great mind's great bribe.
It is a madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because in herself she is nothing, can rule nothing, but is ruled by prudence.
Beware of the fury of the patient man.
Trust reposed in noble natures obliges them the more.
Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections.
Sure there's contagion in the tears of friends.
Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught, The wise, for cure, on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.
Many things impossible to thought have been by need to full perfection brought.
Every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another.
Take not away the life you cannot give:
For all things have an equal right to live.
Imagining is in itself the very height and life of poetry, which, by a kind of enthusiasm or extraordinary emotion of the soul, makes it seem to us that we behold those things which the poet paints.
How blessed is he, who leads a country life, Unvex'd with anxious cares, and void of strife! Who studying peace, and shunning civil rage, Enjoy'd his youth, and now enjoys his age: All who deserve his love, he makes his own; And, to be lov'd himself, needs only to be known.
None would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; And, from the dregs of life, think to receive, What the first sprightly running could not give.
Nothing to build, and all things to destroy.
For what can power give more than food and drink, To live at ease, and not be bound to think?
I'm a little wounded, but I am not slain; I will lay me down to bleed a while. Then I'll rise and fight again.
Reason to rule, mercy to forgive: The first is law, the last prerogative. Life is an adventure in forgiveness.
Pity only on fresh objects stays, but with the tedious sight of woes decays.
Long pains, with use of bearing, are half eased.
A woman's counsel brought us first to woe,
And made her man his paradise forego,
Where at heart's ease he liv'd; and might have been
As free from sorrow as he was from sin.
The conscience of a people is their power.
For all the happiness mankind can gain Is not in pleasure, but in rest from pain.
Confidence is the feeling we have before knowing all the facts
Self-defense is Nature's eldest law.
Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own.
Seas are the fields of combat for the winds; but when they sweep along some flowery coast, their wings move mildly, and their rage is lost.
Nor is the people's judgment always true: the most may err as grossly as the few.
Courage from hearts and not from numbers grows.
More liberty begets desire of more; The hunger still increases with the store
Affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue,--I mean good-nature,--are of daily use; they are the bread of mankind and staff of life.
He look'd in years, yet in his years were seen A youthful vigor, and autumnal green.
Light sufferings give us leisure to complain.
Silence in times of suffering is the best.
An hour will come, with pleasure to relate Your sorrows past, as benefits of Fate.
Mighty things from small beginnings grow.
Be slow to resolve, but quick in performance.
Few know the use of life before 'tis past.
Since a true knowledge of nature gives us pleasure, a lively imitation of it, either in poetry or painting, must produce a much greater; for both these arts are not only true imitations of nature, but of the best nature.
Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine, The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not heaven itself upon the past has power; But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
Truth is never to be expected from authors whose understanding is warped with enthusiasm.
Errors like straws upon the surface flow, Who would search for pearls to be grateful for often must dive below.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the radiant sun, Is Nature's eye.
He who trusts secrets to a servant makes him his master
For they can conquer who believe they can.
Of all the tyrannies on human kind the worst is that which persecutes the mind.
A happy genius is the gift of nature.
By education most have been misled.
'Tis a good thing to laugh at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness.
Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense, But good men starve for want of impudence.
Our souls sit close and silently within, And their own web from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.
Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph make atheists of mankind.
Presence of mind and courage in distress,
Are more than arrives to procure success?
Set all things in their own peculiar place, and know that order is the greatest grace.
For secrets are edged tools, And must be kept from children and from fools.
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